APPLIEDINNOVATIONLAB

The Applied Innovation Lab is a collaboration hub for employees, customers, healthcare providers, and other partners.

About the Applied Innovation Lab

Every corner of Medtronic is working to transform healthcare — including its IT department. The Healthcare Innovation Team, part of information technology, recently opened the doors to the Applied Innovation Lab.

This is a collaboration space like no other at Medtronic. Teams — made up of Medtronic employees, customers, healthcare providers and other partners — can leverage the space as a whole, or take up residence in one of four quadrants of the lab to solve a particular healthcare challenge, like improving on an existing therapy to help patients, or developing new solutions, such as a model of care for a geography that lacks access to healthcare.

Using Design Thinking and Technology

To make innovations meaningful for patients, you must first understand patients. That’s why the Healthcare Innovation team relies on user-centered approaches such as Design Thinking. They immerse project teams in the patient’s or customer’s experience to understand not just their healthcare need, but how that need fits into their everyday lives.

Then the Healthcare Innovation Team’s technical knowledge takes over, matching needs with what is technically feasible. Proper analysis is conducted to understand how these solutions will be crafted into a viable business model.

Every Applied Innovation Lab project is unique, but a common thread is the focus on growth opportunities in digital health. This means they are all using technology to innovate beyond the medical device itself.

Signature Feature: 360-Degree Video Environment

The 2,200 square foot space — located at the Mounds View, Minnesota campus — is a vibrant and dynamic space — always changing, depending what projects are in the works. Simulated environments, such as a patient’s living room or a hospital emergency room containing a bed and patient monitors are created to scale.

But there are environments that cannot be completely experienced in a corner of the lab.

That’s where the Applied Innovation Lab’s signature feature comes into play. It’s a 20 foot, 360-degree video environment that can transport a project team anywhere in the world — from inside the waiting room of a hypertension clinic in Ghana, to our training center in São Paulo, Brazil. When you find yourself immersed in an unfamiliar location, it’s far easier to empathize with and relate to the people and unique challenges they face.

Want to Learn More?

The Applied Innovation Lab opened in September 2015. It currently has four projects in residence, focused on a variety of customer and patient needs from a number of geographies.